24 June, 2008

This is the third entry in our Virtual Seminar on some Unpublished Inscriptions from Corinth (see post I here and post II here). It will feature our first Latin inscription, which consists in four fragments of buff-colored micaceous marble. Fragment A was found beside the Lechaion Road in December, 1929 and has already been published, Fragment B was found 12 July, 1976 in Quarry Trench 9, Fragment C was found a day later 13 July, 1976 also in Quarry Trench 9, and Fragment D was found 6 August, 1974 in Quarry Trench 3. All the fragments are broken on all sides, except Fragment D, which seems to preserve part of the original right edge, although it is not at a right angle with the inscribed surface and therefore it may have been trimmed for reuse. The corner, however, is smoothly rounded here between the two adjacent faces and there are no partial letter traces at the edge. None of the four fragments join and it is not clear to us in what order they should be placed. Photos, squeezes, and autopsy of stones.

Line 1: Kent read Instẹị[um Tectum], but the remnants of the last two preserved letters are clearly LE. For more on this reading, see the commentary below.
Line 2: There is some loss of the surface at the beginning of the line, but the traces of an interpunct may still be seen. Nothing of the H or V is visible. At the end of the line, Kent read Mịṇ[ucium], but this reading would require a space of 0.006 m. between the last stroke of the M and the I, which is three times greater than that found elsewhere on this stone and the new fragments. We believe that AN are clear, followed by the lower part of a hasta, the spacing and context of which suggest a T.
Line 4: The tops of the P and R are visible. The right hasta of the N is visible. After the first X, the trace of the upper left diagonal of another X is visible.

There is a micaceous flaw in the surface running from the top line at the left of the A through the O in line two and the C in line three to the preserved end of line four that makes reading difficult.

Line 1: Traces of three letters followed by two hastae, the first of which leans slightly to the right. Then an A followd by an interpunct. The upper left corner with a piece of the rounded loop of the R is clear at the edge of the break.
Line 2: The upper left angle of the M is visible. [tribuniciu]s apparitoruṃ ?
Line 3: There is a generous space after the R, but no interpunct seems visible, rather a slight point of damage high in the line space.
Line 4: The first letter trace is most consistent with an S, but it could also be the top of a C or the rising tip of a T or F that is found elsewhere on these fragments. The second letter trace can be the top of a B, P or R. The final trace has a hasta and diagonal connected at the top left corner and to the right there is the tip of another hasta, most consistent with an N.

Line 1: The bottom of a hasta, followed by a letter with a base that resembles a B or D, followed by two letter traces that conform well with the bottom part of an R or a crowded IC, followed by the faint trace of a hasta.
Line 2: At the end of the line, only a faint trace of the third hasta is visible. A fourth may have followed the break. The numeral is overlined.
Line 3: It is not clear if the C is the last letter of an abbreviation, such as PROC(urator) or C for C(uravit)/C(uraverunt) or a name such as C(aius). It is not clear to us whether Fideḷ[—] is part of a proper name or an adverb or adjective.
Line 4: At the beginning of the line the lower half of a hasta survives.
Line 6: The overline of the numeral seems to be preserved to its full length and so the restoration of another I seems assured.
Line 7: The upper left tip of a diagonal and to the right of it the tip of a hasta are visible and are consistent with a V. Then there follows the upper tip of another hasta slightly lower in the line followed by an interpunct. We seem to have the end of a large number without an overline (cf. the large number in line 3 of Fragment B, which is also not overlined).

Line 1: Only part of the lower horizontal of the last E is visible.
Line 2: Or [D]ecius. Maecius is more common at Korinth.
Line 3: It is unclear whether the beginning of this line was inscribed or the text at the end of our line 2 continued at the beginning of line 4. It seems more likely that it finished here and a new entry was begun at the beginning of line 4.
Line 5: The two apices of a letter characteristic of an M elsewhere seem clear. Since there is a vacat of 0.016 m. to the right of this, it appears that we have the end of the line.

Commentary:

H.S. Robinson originally thought that these fragments might belong to the Lex Coloniae Corinthiensis (he noted that the words CAESARIS, DECVR[ION—], and APPARITORVM all appeared in the Lex Coloniae Genetivae Ursonensis and deduced a parallel). However, Mary Hoskins-Walbank while working on her dissertation (non vidimus) took a look at the stones and in some correspondence with Robinson expressed the view that they were more consistent with a fasti document – a view we find more likely. She also thought this stone might have been damaged in the earthquake of AD 22/3 and then discarded rather than suffering a damnatio memoriae.

One of the more intriguing aspects of this inscription lies in the reference to a Marcus Instleius in Fragment A, line 1, heretofore read as Insteius, who was one of the earliest duoviri of the colony of Korinth (established 44 BC). The spelling Insteius has been preferred by previous studies rather than Instleius undoubtedly because Instleius is not attested elsewhere (we do, however, find an A(ulus) Instuleius Tenax attested at Egyptian Thebes = Colosse de Memnon 2), while the name Insteius is attested in both Greek and Latin epigraphical and literary sources. The reading Insteius, however, is epigraphically impossible on this stone. Furthermore, the reading Instleius is corroborated on another stone from Korinth (ICor 8,3 149, line 1, photo here). Kent read the first line of this stone as [M •] INSTỊ[E]Ọ • C • F • TECTO, but he went on to add that “the letter following T can only have been I or L, and clearly was not an E. As there is no join between fragments a and b, as there would have been if the E had simply been omitted, I have assumed that the letters EI were erroneously transposed.” However, a transposition on this carefully carved piece of revetment seems scarcely believable. In addition, an L is more likely than an I given that the hastae of the other two instances of I on this same stone are taller while the close proximity of this letter’s hasta to the T that precedes it makes more sense space-wise if it is the hasta of an L (compare how the E in TECTO tucks in under the first T). In line 1 of ICor 8,3 149 we therefore propose reading INSTḶ[ΕΙ]Ο̣.

The reading Instleius rather than Insteius is further corroborated by a series of coins struck at Korinth (see Amandry BCH Suppl. XV pp. 124-128) that, given the rarity of the name Instleius, undoubtedly refer to our same man. On the reverse of several of these coins we find IIVIR paired with INSTL • CAS (example here), and on the reverse of others we find II VIR paired with INTS CAS (example here – where the order INTS is probably a ligature for INST). Previous scholars have interpreted the two men’s names as Inst(eius) and L. Cas. (for the last Amandry suggested L. Cas(tricius Regulus), while Kent suggested L. Cas(ius […]), but the placement of the interpunct between the L and C argues against such a reading and when we add the evidence of the coins to the inscriptions we once again are lead to believe his name was spelled Instleius. Perhaps the form Instleius may have been an older, alternative form of Insteius much like stlis is an earlier form of lis (as in Decemviri Stlitibus Iudicandis). Amandry (p. 36) places Instleius’ office of duovir in 42 or 41 and his office of duovir quinquennalis in 35.

If we assume Instleius is an alternate form of Insteius, this Marcus Instleius, as others have already pointed out, may have been the same man who fought at the side of Antony at the siege of Mutina in 44 BC (Cicero, Philippic 13.26) as well as at Actium in 31 BC (Plut., Antony 65.1).

Thanks for the link to the BCH article – it was on my list of things to read, but I hadn’t got around to it. The money passage is on page 218, especially footnote 14 where Nigdélis independently questioned Kent’s reading of Insteius on ICor 8,3 149 and Amandry’s reading of Insteius on the coins. He also anticipated us in print in proposing Instleius (I should note that Don thought it was Instleius for the last 30 years, as anyone who spoke with him about this inscription can attest). Nigdélis furthermore points out several Greek inscriptions that have the spelling Ἰστλήιος (IG II(2) 1798, l.25 = Agora 15.420, l.25; IG II(2) 2086 col.I, l.78; IG II(2) 2128, l.41). To his list we can also add Agora 15.416, l.13 (restored = the same Istleius of 1798, l.25), IG II(2) 2203, l.79, and, most interestingly of all, the femine form Ἰστληία found at Korinth of all places (ICor 8,3 689, l.2). At a minimum all these examples confirm that Insteius was not the only spelling and that an L after ST is well attested.

Nigdélis also has a powerful argument that the M. Insteius L. f. of his inscription (= SEG 42.575) is the Insteius of Cicero and Plutarch. Thus, when we combine Nigdélis’ arguments with our new reading of ICor 8,3 345 (= Fragment A), I think we have the final nail in the coffin for the theory that M. Instleius C. f. Tectus, who was a duovir and a duovir quinquennalis, is to be identified with Antony’s lackey.

Paul,
thank you for answering to my previous comments and for summarising Nigdelis’ article. I think that you convincingly showed that all Instleius are the same person. It is still surprising to see that such an important person became a local magistrate (see for some doubt Spawforth, Roman Corinth: The Formation of a Colonial Elite, in Rizakis (ed.), Roman Onomastics in the Greek East. Socila and Political Aspects (1996), p. 178). Maybe he quickly defected to Octavian after Actium like another Corinthian duovir Antonius Theophilus (Plut., Ant. 67, 10).

I have another question: what do you make of the figures in the inscription ? Is it money or land measure ? or something else ?

I’m not sure what you mean when you write that I showed that all Instleii are the same person, unless you are only referring to the Instleius of the inscriptions and the coins at Korinth. At any rate, the M. Insteius L. f. attested on Nigdélis’ inscription from Europos was the autocrator of Macedonia and probably Antony’s henchman, while M. Instleius C. f. Tectus was a different man who held the offices of duovir and duovir quinquennalis at Korinth.

Since we don’t know anything else about Instleius’ career, we can’t say whether he was an important person before he became a local magistrate.

As for the larger numbers, I’m not sure what to do with them. It is also possible that they could be life spans ([vixit annos sup]er LXII), in which case this inscription could be a large, family monument.

Paul,
I apologize for the confusion in my last post
what do you think of C1: — Caesar]i Bri[tannico — ?
I am aware of the highly hypothetical nature of this, but, if correct, what would be the consequences for the dating of the inscription ?

I’ll have to think about Caesar]i Bri[tannico more, but if correct, we’d have to move the inscription to a later date. There would also have to be room for an interpunct between your proposed -i and B.

Now that I’m fairly certain that Instleius is not Antony’s man, his office of IIvir might be more amenable to being moved later (which would require moving the CAS guy later too). However, I think the palaeography of the inscription is fairly early for Korinth. I’ll also have to check the excavation notes to see whether the stratigraphy can provide a reasonably firm terminus ante quem for the material found in Quarry Trenches 3 and 9.

Concerning the character of the document, I think a municipal law is indeed fairly unlikely. Too many names for that. What about an album decurionum? The slightly difficult thing for both, fasti or album, will be to explain the mentioning of the apparitores in fragment B.

This is an excellent suggestion. Do you think it is possible that there was some local official in charge of apparitores whose responsibility could have qualified him to be one of the decuriones?

At the moment I don’t have access to CIL IX 338 (the famous album decurionum of Canusium). Do you, or any one else participating, know if it also had large numbers on it? While the high quality of the marble and lettering of our inscription lead me to believe it’s a public document, the large numbers and names make me wonder whether it might in fact be a family monument.

EDCS turned up several other inscriptions, and I will copy out the print lemmata for these since there’s no easy way for me to point you to that search result set (you can recreate it by entering the search terms in one of the search forms available via http://www.manfredclauss.de/ ):

as I am fairly familiar with municipal laws, and as this inscription here is really intriguing, I’d like to give some further comments.

The text, Tom in post no. 13 under (2) refers to, is § 18 of the lex Irnitana (the latest of the municipal laws from the Baetica which have been preserved in a considerable length). The restoration given under the ubi-erat-lupa link is to a considerable extent wrong and should not be followed, cf. my contribution in ZPE 135, 2001, 284-286.

I can check Tom’s nos. 3-8 only on monday, but want to make some further observations or comments right now.

1. It’s right there are no high numbers in the alba decurionum, neither in the one from Canusium nor in the one from Thamugadi. The numbers are slightly difficult to explain anyway. They would rather fit to a list of benefactors. (Perhaps “list of benefactors” is worth further consideration.)

2. The apparitores would indeed fit better to a municipal law. Lex Ursonensis § 62 (if I’m right; will look it up on monday) mentions the apparitores of the duumviri and of the aediles of Urso. The lex Irnitana mentions only the public slaves of the duumviri, aediles, and quaestores in §§ 18,19,20, and the public slaves technically are not apparitores, who have always been free or freedmen (cf. also my ZPE article & my “Sklave der Stadt”). The relevant paragraphs of the other municipal laws (Salpensana and Malacitana) are not preserved. This should also answer your question, Paul, in post 10 on the officials who are “in charge of apparitores”.

3. Still against the idea of a municipal law here speak the many names, esp. in Frg. C which seems to be a list of names. Such a thing is not known from any other municipal law, and would make no sense in such a context.

4. I am also wondering about “Caesaris” in Frg. C l. 4. The other names in this fragment are in the nominative, so “Caesaris” can’t mean the/an emperor himself, but must be the qualification of an individual mentioned in the list, not necessarily “servus Caesaris”, but something like that.

5. I would rather opt for a public monument, not a family monument, Paul. Frg. A certainly names magistrates, who whatever “probarunt”.

Allow me to come back to a suggestion I made previously: B 4 di]spun[ctor. Do you think it would fit with the mention of apparitores ?
The function of public accountant is known in colonial environment, though much later and in a different context. See for instance (from EDCS):
“Publication: CIL 08, 09020 = D 04456

The mention of a public accountant, if correct, makes it tempting to read C1: —l]ibri[s, also because libri are mentioned in other inscriptions quoted by Tom (commentary 13) (and the previous suggestion Caesar]i Bri[tannic looks even more hypothetical than before)

Again,thanks for all these ideas. I’m heading to London tomorrow for a week of EpiDoc training so I probably will not have time to respond to all this until the Monday or Tuesday of the following week. At any rate, I hope you and anyone else interested will carry on!

If I remember correctly the epigraphic attestations for “dispunctor” are very limited, not more than a handful, and geographically restricted to North Africa. So I would think a dispunctor in Corinth is not very likely, especially if the document really is to be dated rather early.

Alexander,
thank you for your comment.
You are right; dispunctor is a rare word, geographically restricted to North Africa. In Salona, the abbreviation disp is sometimes read dispunctor.
I agree with you that a dispunctor in Corinth is not very likely that early.
]ṣp̣uṇ[ is not a common series of letters; should we understand then ]s Pun[ or ]s Run[
with a cognomen like Punicus, Punicius, Runcius or Runnius. Are there many other names possible ?

1) Tom’s nos. 3-8 in post 10 all refer to individuals who have been either apparitor Augusti or apparitor of the senatorial magistrates in Rome itself, who were organized in decuriae. Not sure if this helps for the apparitores (note the plural) in B. The genitive “apparitorum” is also very rare in the inscriptions. Only two instances in EDCS.

2) “probarunt” in A 4 in my view points to some sort of building inscription. A 3 probably mentions the two duumviri who have “approved” whatever the building(s) was/were. Before “probarunt” there must have been something like “faciundum curarunt idemque” probarunt. The interesing thing is that “probarunt” is mostly to be found on inscriptions dating from the Republican period. The more common “probaverunt” also often appears on Republican inscriptions, but here the result is a bit more balanced. The “XX” after probarunt might be the beginning of the sum which was spent, up to XX[XX milia

3) “aedes” C1 may also point to some sort of building inscription. The names in C and D could be the names of benefactors who have contributed to the building costs, and the numbers could indicate the amount of money they have contributed.

4) The apparitores may well have also contributed financially, perhaps corporatively, therefore the plural. Cf. CIL V 3401: apparitores financed the erection of a statue.

5) In the same vein B1 could be “sententia decurionum”, although it has to be admitted that it is usually the other way round (de decurionum sententia).

I just want to thank all of you once again for all these excellent suggestions and respond to some of them and add a few notes.

Alexander, I see now that probarunt in frag. A, line 4 means we have a public inscription. At least that is settled. Alexis, thanks for all the examples of prob- at Corinth. One big problem: what do we do with the accusative(s) in line 3 that precede the verb probarunt in line 4 (i.e., the men named in line 3 cannot be the subject of probarunt in line 4)?

Just a prosopographical note on the Quintus Cornelius of Fragment A. On ICor 8,3 321 we have a Quintus Cornelius [.] f(ilius) [A]em(ilia) Secundus and his various relatives (including his wife Maecia and his sons with the name Quintus Cornelius Secundus) who built the meat market and fish market. Perhaps one of these Quniti Cornelii is the Quintus Cornelius of our inscription. In addition, it is tempting to see the [Ma]ecius A(uli) f(ilius) Co[rnelius] of fragment D as another relative; as West in ICor 8,2 124 points out, some epigrams in the Greek Anthology belong to a Quintus Maecius, two of which address a young man called Cornelius, while a third, which is a dedication to Isthmian Poseidon, refers to the harbors of Korinth.

On fragment B, if we assume this is for a building or some kind of structure, the large numbers could also be measurements (I found several examples). On the other hand, if we have a sum of money then [praet]er LXII (understand milia) in frag. B, line 3 could be a possibility (cf. CIL VIII 7963). [circit]er LXII is also possible.

On CIL VI 1959 we have a tab(ularius) apparitor(um).

SEG 51.341 informs me that an A. D’Hautcourt in BCH Suppl. 39 (2001) 427-37 “cites numerous Greek and Latin inscriptions from Corinth in a brief review of the evidence for reconstruction of the city in the years following 44 B.C.” and that “many of the leading families played a major role in paying for new buildings.” Alexis, don’t you think these new fragments may add to this picture, and by chance do you have a PDF of your article that you could send to me (paul.iversen@cwru.edu)?

Paul,
Thank you for your new very interesting comments and for mentioning my article (“Corinthe : financement d’une colonisation et d’une reconstruction”, in J.-Y. Marc, J.-C. Moretti and D. Viviers (eds.), Constructions publiques et programmes édilitaires en Grèce entre le IIe siècle av. J.-C. et le Ier siècle ap. J.-C. (Athens, 2001) (=BCH Suppl. 39), p. 427-438).
I do not have the article in front of me right now, and, as I wrote it for a conference in 1995, I confess it has faded in my memory.
Here is a brief summary of its main conclusions:
– Economically speaking, Caesar’s decision to found a colony in Corinth was a sound one: free land, excellent situation, construction material freely available in the open quarry which the old Greek city had become
– After a first impulse and investment from Rome, the inhabitants from Corinth seem to have contributed mostly themselves to the building of their city; the emperor or other Roman authorities are not very present in inscriptions attesting building activities or benefactions
– Though archaeologists consider the new Corinth a very Roman city in the middle of Greece, the study of the names of the benefactors seems to show that both Italian freedmen (the original settlers and their descent) and Romanized Greeks (who joined them later) financed the buildings that gave Corinth its Roman aspect.

The new fragments are very interesting, I find, because they provide a list of names (like Antiochus and Cornelius) of benefactors who paid together for a building project which might have been of consequence.

Hoping to compensate for this long self-centered note, I have another question, about D 1 this time: aedes is, of course, very attractive, though I can’t figure out exactly what they would be. What about pr]aedes (pledge, security), which would fit with the accounting context of the inscription ?

A search with “prob” and “praedes” on EDCS (http://www.manfredclauss.de/gb/index.html) gives only 4 inscriptions: CIL I 583 from Rome, the Lex Coloniae Genetivae Ursonensis, the Lex from Irni and a text from Pozzuoli.
If pr]aedes is correct, Robinson might have been right after all and this inscription mention a (colonial?) law.
In this case, I do not know what to do with all the names.
If there was a law, is erun[t possible in B 4 ?

The figure LXII which is also in the Lex Coloniae Genetivae Ursonensis (in a different context, it seems) shows the limited value of parallels for such a fragmentary inscription.
Having said that, it remains a fascinating document. Thank you Paul for allowing us to comment on it.